


Idle Hands and a Craigslist Bowflex

by egocentrifuge



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: Fake AH Crew, Gen, M/M, gav is mentioned but not yet present because i'm hungover lol happy new years, i love jeremy and he'll be in this when gavin gets his chapter, oh uh also, ryan has a shakespearsona, this is an origin story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-01
Updated: 2019-01-01
Packaged: 2019-10-02 03:47:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17256986
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/egocentrifuge/pseuds/egocentrifuge
Summary: Jack never meant to become a criminal. Michael hits his first bank more out of boredom than greed. Ray is a statistic waiting to happen. If asked, Ryan would say it was all a misunderstanding. Geoff isnot a fucking crime boss,dude. And who the hell is this Kevin twink he keeps hearing about?But hey. It all starts somewhere.





	Idle Hands and a Craigslist Bowflex

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry. Gavin isn't in this chapter. This is a shitton of Burnie, though.

Jack never meant to become a criminal, but such is the way of things. He started picking up odd jobs to pay the bills when he can't get other work, driving people here and there for some tax-free goodness. He's good at it. Better than being an extra in softcore porn, at least, or rather--more satisfying. It doesn't seem important to ask the people he's carting around why they need transportation--or it doesn't, until he's cursing over a shattered windshield and trying to out drive bullets. 

"What the fuck?" he growls at the men in his backseat. They're--oh god, they have guns, and they're shooting out the back windows far too calmly. 

"Relax," the man in the passenger seat advises him. "We'll get you another car."

Before Jack can reply that he was a bit more worried about his life than his fucking _car,_ thanks, the man is pointing down a one-way street. 

"Turn here, then left at the end. You'll be able to lose them there." 

Losing the maniacs shooting at them seems like a good idea, so Jack swerves across traffic and barrels down the alley. He finds himself in an industrial park full of things he shouldn't drive into and focuses on not crashing with the bedlam going on around him. There's shouting, there's shooting, there's an explosion from some distance behind them and a firm grip on his arm. 

"Keep going," the man says evenly. "Take us out of the city. Avoid the main roads."

Jack doesn't think he can speak, so he grips the wheel tighter to compensate for his sweaty palms and drives. The men--the criminals, _fuck,_ Jack should have known with the shaved heads and tattoos--talk seriously as they make their way into the hills, mentioning names and events Jack only knows from the news with frightening familiarity. 

"Pull over here," the man in the passenger seat says eventually. Jack's foot twitches on the brakes and they lurch to a stop. It makes his stomach roil. 

"There's two cars down this hill. We take one, you take the other. Registration is in the glove department, money is in the back."

"And this car?" Jack croaks. The man tosses him something--a lighter. 

"Jerry cans," he says simply. "Boys, let's roll."

That's how Jack finds himself standing in front of his SUV as it's consumed by flames, five thousand dollars richer and with a cheap phone burning a hole in his pocket. 

"We'll call you," the man had said before they'd driven off. Jack hadn't said anything. 

He keeps the phone charged, though, and answers when it rings a few weeks later. This time, when the shooting starts, he doesn't have to be told where to go. 

It gets easier. Jack stops looking for work--instead, it finds him. He finds himself investing time and money in finding new things to drive, better ways to keep other gangs out of shooting distance. It isn't until he's watching the red and blue of a police chopper in the rearview mirror that Jack realizes, fuck. _Shit._ He's one of them. He may just be the driver but he's more than aiding and abetting, he's a goddamn criminal, he's wanted by the fucking police. 

"Nice work today, Patillo," the boss of their little operation says. There's the customary exchange of money and Jack thinks, okay. 

He torches the car and his apartment and every connection he has to the shitty little town and its shitty little crime boss, uses his cash to buy a clunker, and drives. 

As the flames carry away the last few months, Jack reaches for his phone. 

"LSPD, what's your emergency?"

"No emergency. I just thought you'd be interested to know that the men who hit the First National thirty minutes ago are on the way back to the city." He rattles off the address and hits 'end call' before tossing the phone out of the window. 

It's poor compensation for the lives Jack has seen taken, but it's a start. From now on, he'll pick his jobs, pick the people he runs with. 

Jack leaves Los Santos in the rearview mirror and heads for the horizon. 

\--

Michael hits his first bank more out of boredom than greed. He's worked on enough security systems to know how theirs works, how to worm his way into the code and move the numbers around. They money ends up in the account of his shitty boss, not out of any malice, just because it's the only name in the system he recognizes. The digital fingerprints leading to the man Michael leaves intentionally, though. He has to know how carefully these things are monitored. 

The next day Michael gets back from a wiring job in the city to see his shitty boss being shoved into the back of a police car. 

"Apparently he hacked into the First National," his coworker says conversationally. "After they were robbed last month, too. You'd think he would have at least done his homework."

Michael makes a vague noise of affirmation and goes to fill out his time card. 

Cool. 

The next time he's more careful. It takes a lot more work to get into the accounts of the city's fattest CEO, and Michael takes his time poking around. A few nights aimlessly sifting through the system reveals some interesting discrepancies, a few buried accounts, and one hell of an oversight. He has to fabricate a reason to install a manual override in the company's main frame, but no one questions an electrician, and he's in and out before anyone can get a good look at his face. Michael wipes the security footage because he's seen them do it in movies--it's much simpler than he thought it'd be, just a single drag and click.

He leaves things lie for a few weeks before starting the transfers. With the logic that the CEO won't be able to go to the cops about his less than legal funds disappearing, Michael funnels the money back into the company. Everyone at the company finds themselves with unexpected bonuses, and when Michael checks the news, the CEO stands in front of a crowd calling for the minimum wage to be raised. 

Michael nearly pisses himself laughing at the anger crinkling the CEO's eyes. 

"Take that, bastard," he mutters. He replays the video three more times before wiping the relevant sections of his system and calling it a night. 

When he's rudely awakened by his door being broken down, Michael is acquainted with the side of the law he hadn't bargained for. Crooked cops. 

They don't find anything on his hard drives, of course; Michael may not know what he's doing, but he's read enough to know the pitfalls of his new hobby. The police end up giving him a bloody nose and a bruised kidney before confiscating his rig; the physical disrespect Michael can handle, but his shit being stolen drives him back to the code. He reads up, keeps researching, keeps pushing--buys a new apartment while he's at it, using cards that aren't strictly his and money that may be stolen. 

It's fortunate that his brush with the law had lost him his job, because Michael works on little else than tearing the CEO a new asshole once he's settled in again. Brick by brick, he demolishes the man's reputation, his funds, his buddies in the police department. The scandal ousting the Corpirate and his pocket cops fills Michael with a warm sense of satisfaction even as he fills his own digital pockets with his booty. 

When the encrypted package shows up on his hard drive, Michael opens it out of curiosity. Boredom, now that his mission is complete. 

Outlined in black and white is a new job, a new asshole to tear. 

Michael grins behind his monitor. Should be interesting. 

It turns out to be very interesting, and very educational. Michael burns through two processors--not through hacking, that part is relatively easy. It's avoiding the police that turns out to be the tricky part. He meets his employers only once, and gets two cracked ribs as a greeting. That's okay, though, because Michael's not as good as covering his tracks as he thinks he is, and by the time the police show up he's in such poor shape they take him to the hospital rather than prison. 

"You poor boy," the nurse clucks over him. "I heard what you did. Stupid, but brave."

"Yeah," Michael grunts. It hurts to breathe. "What's the official story?" 

The nurse finds a newspaper in lieu of answering; while he hovers, Michael reads of the a young electrician's daring plan to rid Los Santos of corruption. Thankfully, there's no name, no picture, but Michael can read between the lines. The LSPD knows who he is, what he does, what he's done. 

It's time to move on. 

Breaking out of the hospital is a lot less complicated than hacking into police databases. Michael prints himself two tickets to get the hell out of Dodge and hops a bus going in the opposite direction. 

As Los Santos gives way into the rolling hills of the countryside, Michael grins at his bruised reflection. 

He's never felt quite so alive. 

\--

Ray is a statistic waiting to happen. The son of an illegal immigrant, he has a smart mouth and a chip on his shoulder. It's easier to mock teachers than to pay attention, and so Ray ends up at a dead end job by seventeen. 

It's easier to mock the customers than suffer their clumsy racism, so Ray finds himself homeless before twenty. 

It's easier to pick pockets than turn tricks, so Ray lands himself behind bars around the same time he can legally drink in one. 

Prison isn't all it's cracked up to be. He eats better than he has in a while, but the company is crap, and there's not much in the way of entertainment. Ray drifts between the Mexicans and the juvies, not fitting in either place but knowing better than to go alone. The name Brown Man sticks with him even after he's let out, somewhat more scarred and more knowledgeable than before, but no wiser. If his time behind bars taught Ray anything, it's that there's an entire world of crime still his for the taking. 

The Mexicans front him enough money for a rifle, but the training he gets on the fly. It's a lucky thing he spent so much time at friends' houses playing first person shooters, because all that experience means he hits his targets where it'll score him the most points. 

Ray gets better as he goes. He pays his pals from prison back, but they still call on him sometimes; in between his own jobs, his own targets, Ray ends up embroiled in a turf war. He sees himself on both sides--the unlucky alien pushed into crime by institutionalized racism, the impoverished kid who had no other choice. 

Rather than deal with the moral ramifications of pulling the trigger on his own kind, Ray skips town. Two months and two states over, he hears about his old buddies going down because of some sort of vigilante. 

Ray pushes the question of justice out of his head and buries his nose behind a scope. 

\--

If asked, Ryan would say it was all a misunderstanding. A joke taken too far, idle musing taken seriously. That's not quite the truth, though. The Mad King had always been an itch in the back of his head, some cross between Hamlet and Macbeth that had took root in his mind when he'd read _The Letter Killer's Club_ back in college. Ryan had spent years musing about the character while he toiled away. It was more fun to slip into the head of a righteous killer while working on a shitty client's web design than it was to be present, so he indulges. Buys a broken down bowflex off of Craigslist, prepares for a stage that will never come. 

When he's mugged on the way back to his crappy apartment, it isn't Ryan that takes the two men down. 

It's only later, when he's cleaning the blood from his hands and absently running through Lady Mac's lines in his head that Ryan realizes he's not fantasizing. That he had--oh fuck, oh _god._

His knuckles ooze incriminatingly as Ryan retches into the sink. He lets the stench of bile chase away the lingering perfume of blood and ends up sitting in his shower fully clothed. 

Years of idle speculation and an unhealthy amount of Dostoevsky keeps Ryan from going to the police--he is not an extraordinary man, but like hell is he a stupid one. 

Ryan puts in his two week notice and spends his evenings researching, thinking. It still makes his skin crawl to remember what he had done, but there are no nightmares, and he doesn't feel nauseated after that first time. Four years of asking himself what his character _wants_ carries Ryan through that initial panic; the Mad King has lived for a decade in his mind. 

He wants chaos. He wants to be feared. He wants to take on the world and, if not to win, to take it down with him. 

Ryan buys a mask. It's easier to pretend he's as confident as the Mad King when the people he hits can't see him sweat. 

Robbing corner stores and gas stations is enough for a while. He learns how to handle the weapons he's rapidly accumulating, how to use his persona to scare people shitless rather than take their lives. It goes from terrifying to exciting to boring in the span of a few months--Ryan can read how a robbery is going to go within the first few seconds, and it has his trigger finger itching. 

There's blood on his hands that he can't wash out, out, damn spot. But it's criminal. It had belonged to muggers, to men with knives and grudges and no vision at all.

Not like Ryan. Not like the Mad King. 

He spends two grand on a gamble and rents a billboard in the center of the city. 

"BURN THE TRASH. LET IT GO INTO THE SKY TO BECOME STARS," it reads, red slashes against a white background. He puts his emblem in the corner, the black skull mask Ryan had never intended to keep using. 

It's a paraphrased quote from _Always Sunny in Philadelphia,_ but he thinks it gets the point across. Besides, he's had enough of Shakespeare. 

Ryan is standing in full costume watching a report on erratic and unexplainable gang activity when someone stops by him. It's a busy cafe, but the newcomer is close enough to touch, and no one has come within a ten feet radius of Ryan in the mask without a knife in their hands. He tenses. 

"The Mad King, huh? That's more than a little pompous."

He doesn't have any periphery with the hard plastic, so Ryan turns his head to survey the speaker. On the screen, the name Burnie Burns flashes in relation to a criminal up and comer; beside him, the man himself grins. 

"You're fucking batshit, aren't you?" Burnie asks conversationally. Ryan shrugs. He can't disagree--it's incredibly idiotic to be out in full costume, to have put up the billboard, to try his hand at assassination. But Burnie claps him on the shoulder and laughs, clearly delighted, and Ryan feels the role settling around him comfortably. 

"Walk with me," Burnie says. It's not Ryan that follows, but the Mad King. 

He truly believes there's a distinction up until the point Burnie turns on him two dozen bodies into their arrangement. Ryan can hear sirens, but distantly; his ears are still ringing from the explosion that had torn through the garage scant moments before. 

"It's nothing personal, dude," Burnie says. He sounds like he's underwater--or is that Ryan? He blinks blearily up at Burnie from his boneless sprawl on the concrete. 

"You're awesome at what you do. Fucking freaky, but damn good. That's the problem. I don't know what makes you tick, yeah? Dangerous, in this line of work. Money, hookers, blow--you just don't seem to care. How can I know you won't go off someday and stick a knife in my throat?"

It makes sense. Ryan would nod along if he didn't think his head would split open at the movement. Instead, he keeps his eyes trained on the gun Burnie is waving around to punctuate his points. Good old Burnie. He's much more animated than the men he pays Ryan to kill, much less uptight. Ryan likes him. 

He doesn't hesitate when Burnie steps into range, though. 

It's the concussion that makes Ryan tear off his mask to heave rather than the sight of Burnie's blood, and that--that's what finally makes it sink in. That this is his life now, that this is who he is. It stopped being a role--it may never have been one. 

"Nothing personal," he croaks. Burnie's too-bright eyes roam over Ryan's naked face; even through the pain of a belly wound, he laughs. 

"You look like a male model, dude. Ahh--Jesus Christ. You couldn't have just killed me outright, motherfucker!"

"Police are on their way," Ryan tells him. He hesitates, then crouches on unsteady feet to rearrange Burnie's hands until he's holding his guts in. Before straightening, Ryan folds his mask and props Burnie's feet up. He vaguely remembers something about shock and elevating feet. 

"I was," he tells Burnie. The sirens are clearer now. He has to leave. 

"Was what?" Burnie wheezes. 

"A male model. 

"Oh, fuck. Don't make me laugh."

Ryan hauls himself onto the nearest fire escape and through an open window as Burnie bleeds out behind him. Instead of feeling angry, or frightened, or annoyed, Ryan feels--exhilarated. With Burnie and his burgeoning power out of the way, Los Santos is doomed to an all-out turf war. It's nothing short of chaos. 

He stumbles into the nearby train yard and passes out stuffed between two cows in a poorly protected transfer car. When Ryan wakes up, he's sticky with blood and has a tongue in his ear. 

"How beauteous mankind is," he mutters. "O brave new world/that has such people in it."

He's sick again in the filthy straw, but feels steadier on his feet when the train slows between stations. Steady enough to shimmy out the way he came, at least, even if he lands in an ungraceful heap by the side of the tracks. 

By the time the concussion has healed, Ryan's name is out there for all the world. There's no shortage of jobs, of ways to further confuse his reputation. 

It's chaos, pure and simple. Ryan relishes it. 

\--

Geoff likes the military. It's a lot like high school, honestly, except instead of homework there's drills, and instead of finals they kill people. The routine of things is comforting. All Geoff has to worry about is keeping his gear in shape, his head above water, and the erratic roar of sirens; the rest sorts itself out one way or another. 

He still believes that when the bullet finds the meat of his leg, when he's shipped back stateside for physical therapy. When he's up to his nipples in medical bills. When he's on the streets with a limp and not enough painkillers. 

He still believes it when he's arrested--drunk and disorderly, hah, these fucks wouldn't know _disorderly_ if it threw a grenade in their tent--and delivered into the loving arms of the Los Santos Penitentiary. 

Prison, as it turns out, is a lot like the military. There's singing, shanking, butt-fucking--all of it pretty par for the course in Geoff's world. His tattoos are different than theirs, of course, and they wear orange instead of fatigues, but Geoff establishes himself as the sergeant of the sector with minimal beatdowns. It takes a while to get his name out there; by the time he can finally shower in peace, his sentence has grown somewhat in length. 

That's fine, at first, but without the pure exhaustion of the army, Geoff finds himself... antsy. It had been one thing to spend a few terrifying hours each week fearing for his life, another thing entirely to lay in the dark and contemplate the feeling of killing someone. Geoff wonders if it'd be different with a pistol, with a knife. 

He's dangerously close to giving it a go with his bare hands when he meets Burnie Burns. 

"Nice ink. Not from here, are they?"

"Huh?" Geoff looks up blearily. The men that normally crowd around him at meals have fucked off mysteriously, leaving the table empty save for him and his new friend. When Geoff risks a look around, he catches a few panicked eyes--aimed towards the stranger, not at him. 

Geoff turns back to the new guy and shrugs. "Nah. I don't want hepatitis, dude."

"Fair enough." The stranger shoves a good amount of what passes at egg into his mouth before gagging dramatically. Geoff grins. He'd obviously never had a military omelette. Geoff is still smirking into his muddy coffee when the man sticks out a hand. 

"By the by, I'm Burnie Burns," he says. "Who the fuck are you?" 

"Geoff Ramsey," Geoff offers easily. He shakes the hand lazily; both of them go for a limp wrist and end up doing little more than flopping their palms against each other. Geoff, who had been expecting the typical bone-crushing grip, snickers; Burnie chokes on a laugh. Geoff giggles; Burnie guffaws. 

They sit there and laugh like lunatics until Burnie doubles over, clutching his stomach.

"Dude, don't eat the eggs," Geoff warns. Burnie flaps a hand as he straightens up. His face is pale. 

"Nah, I've had worse. It's my damn stitches."

Geoff tilts his head. "You have stitches? And they let you in here?" 

Burnie shrugs with a wince. "I'm lucky they didn't stick me in front of a firing squad."

"What'd you do?" Geoff asks. Burnie shoots him an odd look. 

"Uh, what haven't I done? Look around, dude." Geoff props his head on a hand and peers at his fellow inmates; a good number are still watching Burnie with trepidation. 

"So you're like, a crime boss or something?"

Burnie boggles. "I'm the crime boss, fuckwad. Or, I was. Sorola and his crew are probably already in my turf, if the fucking neo Nazis didn't get there first."

Geoff frowns, trying to keep up. "Is Sorola the one that shot you?" 

"Who, Gus?" Burnie shakes his head. "Nah, we're cool. No, that was the Mad King. And he stabbed me, the fucking bastard." 

"The Mad King? What kind of name is that?"

Burnie snorts. "Right? I think it's from Shakespeare, or something. Turns out the dude has a degree in theatre."

"A crime boss does?" 

"No, a mercenary," Burnie corrects patiently. "James Ryan Haywood, previously only known as the Mad King. He started hitting up half the stores in town a few months ago, then lost his goddamn mind and started advertising on a billboard right in the middle of town."

"No way," Geoff says, delighted. 

"Right? I thought I'd send him off to get killed, but he turned out to be pretty decent at what he does and popped everyone I pointed him at."

"Then he betrayed you," Geoff guesses. Burnie looks immediately shifty.

"Ah, well. It was a matter of time."

"You betrayed him?" Geoff asks. He considers what he knows. "How'd you get away after he stabbed you?"

Burnie winces. "I didn't. He put my fucking guts back in and gave me his mask, then cracked a joke and wandered off."

"Mask?" 

"Skull mask. Black, freaky."

"Oh." Geoff thinks back to an alcohol-soaked past. He brightens. "Oh, the billboard with the Always Sunny quote?" 

Burnie makes a face. "Was it? Jesus Christ. That dude is insane." 

"Sounds like a man of good taste to me."

"Yeah, but you have a mustache."

"Oi. You shut your mouth. My mustache is classy."

"Right, right."

Geoff leans forward, interested now. "Did he make a pun? Use another Always Sunny quote?" 

"Who? "

"This James guy. You said he told a joke and fucked off."

"Oh." Burnie shrugs. "It actually wasn't a joke, it turns out. How the rozzers found out his name."

"How?" Geoff insists. Breakfast is almost over, and he knows they're being watched by more than the inmates. The guards will be over to wave their dicks around any minute. 

"When he took his mask off, he was, well. Not as ugly as I thought he'd be. Kind of handsome, actually. It's a bit hazy now, but I think I told him he looked like a male model."

"Gay," Geoff says absently, then, "And he...?"

"He said he was, and then he was just fucking gone. When the police found me I apparently wouldn't shut up about it, so they tracked down a bunch of photos and flashed them at me until one looked familiar."

"No way. He was telling the truth?" 

"Yep. Good ol Georgia boy with no criminal history and a degree in fucking theatre."

"That's weird as dicks, dude."

"You're telling me."

Geoff sees movement out of the corner of his eye and stands abruptly. He's pleased when the men loosely identifiable as his cronies stand as well; they create a maze for the guards to navigate through, and Burnie doesn't seem like he'd be able to take a punch. 

"Breakfast over?" he asks mildly. Geoff grins at him. 

"Time to be on your best behavior," he teases. Burnie stands; despite his injury, there's a confidence to his stance that Geoff recognizes immediately. Here's a leader. Here's a man to follow into war. 

"Lead the way, Ramsey," he says. Geoff turns, giddy. 

The next few months turn out much differently than Geoff expects. Where before he was feared, annoying enough to left alone, he and Burnie are--respected. Looked up to. People want to follow them, and so together, they run the prison. It takes a while to get started, but those men of Sorola who've ended up behind bars--more than any of the rest of them, with racial profiling--follow Burnie almost immediately. The rest fall slowly into line, rival gangsters and petty criminals alike. Geoff and Burnie represent stability, represent hope, and so it's not long before they're shoved into a small room across from the chief of police. 

"Babs," Burnie says easily. Geoff takes in the blonde across the table, her long suffering stare. He decides he likes her. 

"That's Chief Babs to you," she snaps, but there's no heat behind it. "Burnie, I told you to stay out of trouble."

"I have," Burnie says innocently. "There haven't been any riots or anything."

"Not yet," the woman sighs. "You have the guards pissing themselves, Burns."

"Not my fault they've got weak bladders."

"Here I thought they were always clenched because of the food," Geoff muses. The chief of police switches her gaze to Geoff as if seeing him for the first time.

"Barbara Dunkleman," she says. "Who the fuck are you?" 

"Geoff Ramsey," Geoff responds. "Why is that always how people introduce themselves?" 

Barbara folds her hands on the table. "You're nobody," she explains. "No offense. You're in for a petty crime and now you're in charge of the place." 

"Co-charge," Burnie insists. Geoff elbows him in the ribs. 

"Whatever," Barbara says. "It's still weird. Burnie likes twinks, not--" She gestures to Geoff. He glances at Burnie. 

"Is that why you won't shut up about Haywood?"

"Shut up. He might have a pretty face, but he's not a twink."

"So you're not into twinks?" Geoff pushes. Burnie shoves him as best he can with his hands chained to the table. 

"He was blonde," Barbara muses. "Maybe that's what Burnie's into." 

"I am not--" Burnie starts, then, "Wait, was? What happened? He's not....?"

"No, Burnie. He's not dead." Barbara slides them a slim file; inside are an assortment of surveillance stills featuring the same broad-shouldered man. His face, when it's not in the familiar black mask, is painted in a gross mockery of a clown's makeup. He has dark hair pulled into a ponytail. 

Geoff is still staring curiously when Burnie looks up. 

"These are from Achievement City," he says. Geoff wonders why he thinks that, but Barbara nods rather than disagree.

"He's been there since he eviscerated you," she confirms. "Sowing anarchy and turf wars, as per usual. It doesn't seem like he's making the mistake of working with anyone this time."

"Hey," Burnie defends. "He didn't actually eviscerate me. And I wasn't that bad of a boss."

"You blew up a building with him in it," Barbara says dryly. "If that's not an explosive end to a relationship, I don't know what is."

"Barbara," Burnie groans. Geoff giggles before he can stop himself. 

"Something funny, Geoff?" Barbara demands. Geoff takes in her glare, then Burnie's, and laughs again. 

"You said I'm weird, and yet you're--what? Keeping tabs on Burnie's ex for him?"

"Keeping a bead on a dangerous criminal," Barbara corrects. Burnie's _"He's not my ex,"_ is louder. 

"Okay," Geoff soothes. "But, like, you see what I'm saying? Why are we here?" 

"I was getting to that," Barbara huffs. She steeples her hands. "Burns, you're going back on trial in two weeks. You'll be acquitted."

Surprisingly, Burnie winces. "Are things that bad?" he asks. Barbara's lips thin. 

"You'll be able to speak to your second before the trial," she says. "For now--yeah. Yeah, things are fucking awful without you out there."

"Awesome," Burnie mutters. Geoff leans forward. 

"So, why am I here again?" he insists. Barbara sighs. 

"We can't leave you here. You had support even before Burnie got himself stabbed. With the entire prison behind you, you're going to cause a revolution."

"Uh, not likely," Geoff tries. He can feel the panic setting in--is he about to be shot? Lethally injected? Transferred? 

"You're getting out for good behavior," Barbara continues. "And getting the fuck out of Los Santos."

"Oh." The chains rattle as Burnie pats Geoff's knee. "That's--okay."

"I can't force you to do anything, but I'll tell you this. Achievement City is falling apart. And the AHPD--they couldn't find a perp in the middle of a bank heist."

"Uh," Geoff manages. 

"You'll do great," Burnie assures him. "I should be able to get you set up once I'm back out there."

"Sure," Geoff croaks. "That sounds great. Except for the fact that I'm _not a fucking crime boss,_ dude."

"Hey, hey! Don't freak out. First rule of crime--the boss never panics." 

"Second rule of crime," Barbara contributes. "Don't fucking discuss it in front of the chief of police." She stands and gestures to the men on the other side of the glass door; they come in to retrieve Geoff and Burnie warily. She levels them with a hard stare as they're cuffed to the lead. 

"If you don't turn shit around, you're not stepping foot in this prison again. It'll be straight to the chair."

"Fuck you, copper," Burnie snarls. It's so sudden that Geoff starts; when he looks, Barbara's face is utterly blank. 

She meets his eye before they're shoved into the hallway. Geoff must imagine the wink. 

"So," Burnie says the next morning at breakfast. "What's the first thing you're going to do when you're out?" 

"Uh, shoot myself, probably?" Geoff thinks he's joking, but isn't entirely sure. He certainly doesn't have a fucking answer for Burnie.

"Geoff, relax. You'll have Achievement Shitty wrapped around your finger in no time. The crowd there is a fucking joke compared to Los Santos."

"Burnie, the only crime I've ever committed was arson, and that's because I passed out with a lit cigarette and a bottle of whiskey. I'm a gimpy veteran with a past of substance abuse. They'll eat me alive."

"You haven't limped for weeks, dude. And you've been clean this long." Burnie waves his fork at Geoff. "Stay away from the juice and I promise, you'll be fine."

"Right," Geoff says. "For about a week."

Burnie rolls his eyes. "If you're going to be such a baby about it, I have just the guy for you. He's from across the pond, and can probably recite my schedule from the last year backwards." Burnie frowns. "If he's still alive. Shit, I should have asked Babs while I had the chance."

"Is this your twink?" 

"A twink, not my twink. He--fuck, I guess he's a fanboy? Tracked me down through CCTV, hacked my Alexa and scared the shit out of me at three in the morning. Saved me from a raid, though."

Geoff thinks. He vaguely recalls the story. "Kevin?" he guesses. Burnie laughs.

"Gavin. Gavin Free."

**Author's Note:**

> you can find me at egocentrifuge dot tumblr dot com


End file.
